The Tear Collector
by Copycat
Summary: Multi-chapter fic. The bodies of two children turn up at the morgue, and the team must help the police in a race against time to save a third child. Rated for violence and sexual content.
1. Prologue

TITLE: The Tear Collector  
AUTHOR: Copycat (Lizzy)  
RATING: M  
CLASSIFICATION: Nikki/Harry, Crime, Suspense, Romance, Angst  
SPOILERS: Anything through series 12 is fair game.  
SUMMARY: The bodies of two children turn up at the morgue, and the team must help the police in a race against time to save a third child. Rated for violence and sexual content.  
DISCLAIMER: The BBC owns everything you recognise. And probably some things you don't.

I'm trying to find my dark and twisted place. I thought I might as well go all in and make this my first attempt at a multi-chapter fic as well. Updates are likely to be infrequent and irregular, but feel free to badger me. It might actually work.

Any kind of feedback is welcome – especially if I mess something up. Odds are I will.

I'm a bit scared to be honest.

* * *

PROLOGUE:

A November storm was howling, the wind throwing the branches of ancient oak trees to and fro, the rain pelting down, forcing faded leaves to the ground where they mixed with the mud.

Behind the row of trees, nearly hidden from the road, an old house stood its ground against the storm. Tiles had fallen off the roof over the years, and the garden, once kept up so meticulously, contained nothing but an assortment of weeds.

Anything of beauty had long since been extinguished.

A steady light shone from a single window on the first floor, belying the general air of abandonment surrounding the place.

Inside, in the corner of a dark room upstairs, a child was huddled up on the floor, shivering from the cold that seeped into the old house through the cracks around the grimy windows.

There was no furniture in the room, only a blanket and an old bedpan. Both lay undisturbed in the middle of the room where they had been left earlier in the day.

The stairs creaked, and the sound was loud enough to be heard, even over the noise of the storm outside.

The child sat up straighter, staring intently at the door. Waiting.

The creaking became louder and then stopped as a strip of light appeared under the door.

There was a knock.

The child sniffed but said nothing.

The knock was repeated, more insistently this time. Still the child did nothing.

"Evelyn?" A sing-song voice asked from the hallway. "Evelyn?"

"My name is Lucy!" The child shouted back angrily.

The door opened and a man appeared in the doorway, holding a flashlight in one hand and balancing a tray precariously in the other.

"Don't play games with me, Evelyn," the man said softly, kicking the door shut behind him as he walked into the room. "When I knock on your door, you answer. It's not good manners to keep people waiting, do you understand?"

"My name is Lucy," the girl hissed through gritted teeth.

The man ignored her, putting down the tray on the floor. "I've brought you something to eat. I thought you might be hungry."

The girl glared at him, refusing to look at the food.

"Thank you," the man prompted, walking over to the girl and crouching down in front of her. He reached out a hand and gently brushed filthy, greasy hair out of her face, tucking it neatly behind her ear.

The girl said nothing, looking at him with defiance and loathing shining in her blue eyes.

The man tut-tutted and shook his head in disappointment. With his thumb he brushed dirt from her cheek, licking his lips.

The girl's fists clenched, her whole body tensing up, but she didn't move.

The man smiled sadly. "We'll get there in the end," he told her with a confidence brought on by experience.

He pushed off from the floor with the flashlight, momentarily throwing the room into darkness. "Goodnight, Evelyn," he said to the girl and walked back to the door. "I'll see you tomorrow. Sleep well."

The girl watched as the door closed behind him and waited, listening to the sound of his retreating footsteps. Only when she was sure he had gone back downstairs did she move, throwing herself at the tray, and greedily wolfing down the stew and lumps of bread he had left for her. When she had finished, she licked the metallic plate, still hungry after a whole day of nothing to eat.

Then, still on her knees next to the tray, she banged her fists on the floor in frustration, cursing her own weakness. She picked up the plate and threw it at the door, pretending it was the man she hit and not just solid wood.

She knew he would come back in the morning and see that she had eaten. He would tell her what a good girl she was for eating it all.

For the first two days she had refused to eat anything he gave her, but then she became too hungry to resist, and now her only remaining act of defiance was refusing to let him see her eating the food he brought her.

He might _know_ that she was weak, but she wouldn't let him _see_ it.

The girl looked out the window at the storm and thought of her parents. If she had been at home right now, mummy would have made them all hot cocoa before bed and daddy would be checking that she had done all her homework, telling her how big she was getting and tousling up her hair.

She shook her head roughly and thought of school instead. Of her horrible maths teacher and stupid Brian Denham, who always tried to knock her off the swing during recess.

Whatever happened, she wouldn't cry.

* * *

The locker room was empty when Harry walked in. He yawned and stretched, working the kinks out of his back. Then he sat down on the bench and pulled off his autopsy wellies. His socks, too, fell to the floor, before he got up and took off his scrubs.

He walked naked to his locker and got out a clean towel and a bottle of shampoo and then made his way to the showers.

The water was somehow, miraculously, instantly warm and he stepped into the spray, letting the water pour down his body, washing off a long day in the cutting room.

Squeezing out a bit of shampoo in his hand he massaged his scalp roughly, until his fingers were buried in white foam, and then he shifted to wash the shampoo from his hair, closing his eyes and mouth to keep the soap out and rubbing his hands against his body to clean it as the white foam made its way down his torso and legs.

He was so absorbed in the pleasure of finally feeling clean again that it didn't quite register with him that the door to the shower room had opened and closed. Only when he heard the sound of footsteps did he realise that he was no longer alone.

He wiped the water out of his eyes and opened them, but there was no one there. "Leo?" He called out.

"No. It isn't Leo," a voice told him and he froze.

Nikki stepped out from behind the partition separating his shower from the next one. She was naked and she was smiling at him as if there was nothing odd about that at all.

"No, you're not," Harry agreed, trying not to stare and failing abysmally.

"I just wanted to see if your showers are any better," Nikki told him, staring back openly. "I hope you don't mind."

Harry smiled, well aware that she could very easily _see_ just how little he minded. "Of course not," he assured her. "_Are_ they any better, then?"

She grinned and licked her lips, taking a step closer to him. "Oh, yes. Loads better."

He took a step to the side, inviting her into his shower stall and she walked in, pressing herself against him under the stream of water cascading over them both.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned up to kiss him hungrily.

He kissed her back with a matching fervour, groaning as she rubbed herself against him, naked and wet and... Nikki.

"I want you, Harry," she told him with a sigh, biting his earlobe. "Now."

He pressed her up against the partition, and she pulled him closer, her nails digging into his buttocks.

He picked her up by the waist and she wrapped her legs around his hips and her arms around his neck, sighing contentedly when he entered her, her eyes boring into his. He closed his eyes from the intensity of her gaze.

Pressing her against the shower partition for support he moved inside her, slowly at first but then faster and faster as she moaned with pleasure.

Then, somehow, her moans became a ringing noise and he realised she wasn't moaning at all, she was making the exact same noise as his mobile.

He opened his eyes and the shower stall was replaced by his bedroom and he was alone. He groaned in frustration and reached out a fumbling hand for his mobile on the bedside table.

"Mwah?" He said, when he finally located it and managed to press the appropriate button.

"Harry, it's Leo," his boss told him on the other end of the line. "I'm sorry to wake you, but we have a case."

Shaking off the last remnants of his dream, Harry focused on what Leo was saying. "Okay. I'll be right there."

He sat up on the edge of the bed and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes as Leo gave him the address of the scene and then ended the call briskly, needing to get back to work.

Harry looked at his alarm clock and realised that it was only just four in the morning. Sighing, he stood up and walked to the bathroom for a cold shower.

He had a feeling this was going to be a very long day.


	2. I'll Still Be Here In The Morning

**CHAPTER 1: I'll Still Be Here In The Morning**

When Harry arrived on scene just over an hour later he parked next to a police car, noticing as he pulled up that both Leo and Nikki had already arrived. He turned off the stereo and took a deep breath before leaving the comfortable warmth of his car. Last night's storm might have ended, but it had been replaced by a dark, ominous chill that cut right to the bone.

Leo had been very brief on the phone and Harry had no idea what to expect, but judging from the massive police presence, and the fact that Leo felt all three of them were needed, he expected it to be more complicated than just a junkie passing out and freezing to death.

At the other end of the park, near the edge of a forest, a white crime scene tent had been erected and police officers, some in uniform, some civilian, were milling about around it, all looking grave and busy. From the forest he could hear the sounds of dogs barking.

About fifty feet from the first tent SOCOs were hard at work erecting a second one, their work closely observed by a man and a woman. The man, dressed in a dark blue trenchcoat, was shuffling his feet impatiently, shouting orders into a mobile phone. The noise was carried over to Harry by the wind, but he couldn't hear the actual words. The woman was dressed in white coveralls, her blonde hair hanging loosely down her back. She was watching more patiently, her eyes fixed on the white plastic that would become the tent's walls.

Harry began to make his way over to them, but was stopped by a uniformed police officer guarding the outer perimeter of the crime scene.

"Harry Cunningham, pathologist," Harry told him holding up his badge, his eyes still on the woman.

The officer picked up a sealed plastic bag containing a complete set of protective clothing and handed it to him. "Go right through, Dr. Cunningham." He pushed down the police tape to make it easier for Harry to step over it.

Just as Harry swung his left leg over the tape, wobbling uncertainly when his foot caught in the sticky mud, Nikki turned around to look back at him. She grinned as he waved his arms around to keep his balance and then gestured for him to come over.

Her sudden movement made the trenchcoat clad man turn around as well and Nikki said something to him, which made him nod, and then he returned to his phone call.

Harry walked across the green to them. "Leo in there?" He asked, indicating the other tent with a nod of his head.

"Yes," Nikki said, looking at the tent and frowning slightly.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes," Nikki repeated, making a visible effort to look as if that were true. "This is DCI Constance, he's in charge," she said in a business-like voice that made it clear to Harry that now was not the time to prod. The DCI was in his forties, Harry guessed. He didn't look like someone anyone would want to go up against in a bar fight.

The DCI said something into his mobile and moved it away from his ear, reaching out a hand for Harry to shake. "Doctor Cunningham," he said briskly. "Two bodies. Teenager found the first one at about two o'clock this morning. He was high as a kite, but somehow still managed to dial 9-9-9. Police found the other body--" he indicated the second tent, now nearly completed "--when they were securing the perimeter. This body has been here considerably longer, according to your colleagues."

"But you think the two are related?" Harry asked.

Constance nodded grimly. "Definitely. We're fairly sure it's two of the Hillcrest girls."

Harry shot a glance at Nikki, suddenly understanding her behaviour. They had been discussing the three missing girls a few days earlier. The parents of all three girls had gone on television and the mother of one of them had made a heart-wrenching appeal for anyone who had any information to come forward.

Harry had wondered out loud about the decision to bring all three sets of parents on telly together, and how it played into the investigation. Did the police suspect a conspiracy or was it an effort to save time, casting a wide net over everyone in the hopes that someone would get caught?

Nikki had told him scathingly that sometimes an upset parent really was just an upset parent and he should show some compassion.

"We have dogs sniffing out the forest, searching for the third body, but so far nothing," Constance went on and then turned to Nikki. "Right. You lot do your thing and I'll see you back at the morgue. I need to finish this." He indicated his phone and then turned away.

As he walked off, Harry could hear him hissing angrily, "I don't bloody care about your policies, I want her on this. She can have her fucking breakdown when this is over."

Harry looked at Nikki and grimaced and she shook her head.

"How does it look?" He asked.

Nikki sniffed and he wondered if she was crying but then he realised it was just the cold. "They think Leo's body is Madeline Groves. She's the one who disappeared two weeks ago. And then this must be Katie Wilder."

"That was the first girl to go missing, right?" Harry asked, making sure he remembered right.

Nikki nodded. "A month ago. We can't be sure, though, she's been here for too long, her face is..." she trailed off. "Animals," she finished, waving a hand at the forest in resignation.

Harry nodded, sucking in his lips. "So it's not Lucy Mortimer?"

"Can't be," Nikki insisted. "This body's been here longer than she's been missing." She pointed to his coveralls, still in their wrappings. "Will you help me? I think Leo's nearly finished over there."

"Of course," Harry agreed, tearing open the bag and pulling on the plastic suit just as a SOCO came over to tell them everything was ready for them to begin.

* * *

In the old house hidden from the road by the trees, Lucy Mortimer was sleeping on the floor. She shivered under the thin blanket the man had supplied her with.

Downstairs, the man was awake, sitting in an old armchair listening to a small portable radio. He smiled as he heard the first story on the six o'clock news.

Two bodies had been found in a park, and while police were refusing to comment it was believed that it might be two of the girls who had gone missing from Hillcrest Academy in the last month.

The voice on the radio moved on rapidly to yet another story about the recession and the man turned off the radio.

Finally, something was happening.

He got up and walked to the kitchen, picking up a flashlight as he went.

He turned on the gas stove and boiled water for tea. Humming to himself, he dropped tea bags into two cups instead of just one.

As he waited for the kettle he cut four neat slices of bread, buttered them generously and then spread raspberry marmalade over the butter.

He arranged the food on two plates and then placed the plates on tray. There was only _just_ room left on it for the two steaming cups.

Perfect, he thought to himself, nodding in satisfaction, and then he picked up the tray and walked upstairs.

"Evelyn," he called out, knocking on the door. When the girl didn't answer he sighed, but he wouldn't mind it. Not today. Not when things were finally starting to happen.

He opened the door and saw that the girl was asleep. His smile widened. She looked so small, so fragile.

So innocent.

He put down the tray on the floor and walked over to her, crouching down and reaching out a hand to touch her.

It happened in the blink of an eye. The girl was on her feet, and she was running past him towards the door, escaping.

He howled with rage, getting to his feet, overturning the tray, and following her as she made her way down the hall to the stairs.

He caught up with her halfway down the stairs, grabbing her roughly around both arms and shaking her. "Don't do that, Evelyn." He carried her by the arms back to her room, as she kicked him and waved her little fists around, trying to hit him.

She was too small to do any real damage.

"I made us such a lovely breakfast," he told her sadly, kicking the door to her room shut behind them. "We were going to have such a wonderful morning, and now you've ruined it. I'm going to have to punish you. You understand that, don't you?"

The girl looked at him, her eyes flashing with anger.

"When little girls misbehave, they have to be punished," he said, more to himself than to her. "Otherwise they'll never learn."

* * *

Harry was the last of the three pathologists to leave the locker room and walk into the cutting room. DCI Constance was there, still talking on his mobile, and Harry wondered briefly if he ever put it away. Next to him a very young policeman in uniform was looking around the room apprehensively, taking everything in. Harry noticed that the young man looked at everything but the two small bodies that had been undressed and placed on slabs a few metres apart.

Three lab assistants were preparing tables with scalpels and pans, getting everything ready for the PMs. They worked efficiently and meticulously, apparently unaffected by the fact that it was children those scalpels would soon be cutting into.

Leo and Nikki were standing between the two slabs, talking in hushed voices.

Harry walked over to them. "Are we ready to begin?" He asked, looked from one to the other.

Leo shook his head. "The DCI asked us to wait."

"For what?" Harry asked, incredulous. "Is he expecting them to wake up?"

Before Nikki could tell him off for being insensitive, the door to the cutting room opened and a man walked in.

He stopped just inside the door and waited for Constance to take a break from his phone call. "I just talked to her, she's on her way," he said without further explanation.

The DCI nodded and put the phone back to his ear. "Just get on it," he ordered and hung up at last.

"Dave Simmons," the new arrival said, waving briefly at the three pathologists.

"How is she?" DCI Constance asked Simmons, who looked at him in surprise.

"She's fine, sir," he said vaguely.

"Like hell she is," the DCI snorted dismissively.

"You're the one who wanted her to come back, sir. I think you should probably just take my word for it that she is," the younger man said softly, looking around the room at the many people listening in on their conversation.

Constance nodded at that, thoughtful. "What you're saying is, if she blows her brains out they'll try to pin it on me, and that'll be my career down the toilet."

"Or something to that effect," Simmons agreed hesitantly.

Harry felt Nikki shift next to him, and when he looked at her, her face was screwed up in outrage and disgust. He suspected she would not be exchanging friendship bracelets with DCI Constance when this case was over.

"Hell," Constance went on, smiling grimly. "She might do it just to fuck me over."

The door opened and a woman in her early thirties walked in. Her dark hair was pulled back in a loose ponytail, and she wasn't wearing enough make-up to hide the dark circles under her eyes. Her jeans were holed and she was wearing a tattered black t-shirt with a beaten up yellow smiley face printed on the front. "I assume we're talking about me?" She asked, looking straight at DCI Constance.

"DI Anna Sterne," Constance said, by way of introducing her to the room in general. She turned to look at Nikki, Harry and Leo as Constance pointed them out in turn. "Doctor Alexander, Doctor Cunningham, Professor Dalton. Now let's get started."

Simmons walked over to Sterne. "Nice outfit," he told her, grinning. "Very professional."

"If it's professionalism you want, you should probably get hold of someone who isn't on a forced sabbatical," she told him flatly. She caught Harry looking over at them and smiled at him.

He smiled back briefly and then turned to Leo and Nikki.

"I'll take the first body, why don't the two of you take the second one," Leo suggested. Harry and Nikki both nodded and Leo turned to the slab behind him, waving over a lab assistant who immediately picked up a camera and joined him.

Nikki waved a hand at the decaying, half-eaten corpse, indicating that Harry was welcome to start. He nodded and took in a deep breath before bending over the body to examine it closer.

When he had finished the external exam, collecting samples from the soles of the girl's feet and under her fingernails, he looked up and saw that DI Sterne had moved closer and was observing his work intently. Simmons and Constance were both watching Leo's PM.

His eyes travelled to Nikki, who was sitting on a stool, busy digging bugs out of the girl's hair, and she met his eyes, glancing briefly at Sterne and grimacing apprehensively.

"I'm fine," the DI told them, sighing.

Nikki looked up at her guiltily. "Sorry."

"I spent two weeks searching for this girl," Sterne said to no-one in particular. "We looked everywhere, we talked to everyone who'd ever met her. Her parents, all her teachers, all her little friends. Nothing. It was like she'd just vanished into thin air on her way home from school one day."

Harry picked up a scalpel and cut a large 'Y' down the girl's torso, skipping over the parts that had been eaten away by rats and other scavengers. He didn't bother mentioning that the body hadn't actually been identified yet.

Nikki was still working next to him, but he knew she was listening intently to what Anna Sterne was saying.

"And then one afternoon, Madeline Groves didn't come home from school either and we started all over again. We talked to _her_ parents, and we talked to all the same teachers, and all the same little friends. Simmons actually questioned Madeline after Katie first disappeared."

Nikki and Harry both turned to look at Simmons, who glanced up briefly when he heard his name being mentioned and then went back to staring intently at Madeline Groves' pale, dirty face.

"The day after Lucy Mortimer disappeared I had a--disagreement--with the Hillcrest headmistress. I was suspended and told to replace that bloody awful porcelain dog she'd had on her desk." Sterne smiled slightly and Harry snorted with laughter. He had no trouble imagining the violent end the porcelain dog had met.

"That's when Charles took over," Sterne finished, looking at the DCI across the two slabs.

"So you were just suspended for having a row? Then why..." Nikki trailed off, unsure of how to best paraphrase what Constance has said earlier.

Sterne shrugged and watched impassively as Harry squeezed the stomach contents into a pan held up for him by a lab assistant. "It's a bit more complicated than that," she said, but didn't elaborate further.

Harry shot Nikki a look to tell her to drop it. She pretended not to notice but didn't ask any more questions.

"Anna," Constance said suddenly. "I'm going to see the Groves after we finish here, do you want to come?"

DI Sterne frowned and didn't look up. "No," she said finally. "I'm not actually allowed, am I?"

Constance nodded, clearly annoyed but not pushing it. "Simmons?" He asked instead.

Detective Simmons looked up from Madeline's face, first at Constance and then at Sterne. "Yeah, alright," he agreed.

DI Sterne shook her head at him and he grimaced, but then had to move away as Leo picked up an electric saw and prepared to cut open the girl's skull.

Simmons swallowed and turned away.

"I'm sure no one would mind if you went to get yourself a cup of tea," Nikki said kindly to the detective, ignoring the derisive look DCI Constance shot her.

He looked at her and smiled weakly. "I'm fine. But thanks."

She smiled back softly and returned to her work.

Harry looked at DI Sterne who was watching Nikki work now, a grateful smile on her face. Clearly she appreciated Nikki's concern.

* * *

AN: Not the most exciting ending of a chapter ever, perhaps, but at least I've got the story started properly now. I won't keep going on about the new characters like this, I promise. I just felt like they had to be properly introduced. They _are_ the ones who need to do the actual police work, after all. ;-)


	3. The World Is Soft Around Her

**CHAPTER 2: The World Is Soft Around Her**

Having finished their PM and left the cleaning up to the lab assistants, Harry and Nikki retreated to the locker room, leaving Leo to finish up in the company of DCI Constance and his dysfunctional team.

"Those poor girls," Nikki said, sitting down on the bench between the two rows of lockers.

Harry leaned back against the lockers, looking down at her and saying nothing.

She looked up, meeting his eyes. Behind the sadness her eyes were hard, and he knew she was pushing him away, that she didn't want him to see the extent of her pain. She didn't want him to think she needed his sympathy.

"It could've been worse," he told her at last, knowing it wasn't what she wanted to hear.

Her eyes flashed with anger. "What? Because there were no signs of sexual assault, you mean?" She scoffed at him.

"Yes," he said firmly, ignoring her anger.

Nikki sighed, her anger evaporating as he held her gaze steadily. "You're right. I'm sorry. It's just... they might not've been _raped_ but they still suffered, Harry. They've been missing for _weeks_, there's no way a post mortem is going to tell us everything that happened to them. How scared they were, how badly they wanted to go home." Her voice cracked and she wiped angrily at her eyes, refusing to cry.

Harry smiled softly and pushed off from the lockers, bridging the distance between them with two short steps. He reached out a hand and massaged her back gently, his fingers brushing against the neckline of her scrubs. "I know," he agreed softly.

Her head fell forward and he saw her close her eyes, her shoulders sagging as she began to relax to his touch. He smiled to himself and kept working on the kinks in her neck, his fingers leaving red marks on her smooth skin.

Nikki moaned suddenly, when his thumb pressed against a particularly sore spot at the nape of her neck, and he had an unwelcome flashback to that night's much too vivid dream. He pulled his hand away quickly, feeling the effects of the images on his body.

"Don't stop," Nikki complained, stretching back towards him, still with her head bent down.

"Nu-uh," Harry told her with forced cheerfulness. "If you want more, it's going to cost you."

She laughed softly. "There's a tenner in my purse, I'll get it for you later."

He scoffed, laughing. "You think you're getting these magic fingers for a mere ten pounds?" He asked, waving his hands in front of her face. "You're delusional."

"If you think those fingers are magic, _you're_ the delusional one," she answered, swatting his hands away.

"I'll have you know that I've performed miracles with these hands," he told her, taking hold of both her shoulders and kneading into them.

"On dead people, though," Nikki dead-panned. "Not women."

He laughed, boring his thumbs into her shoulder blades until she cringed, laughing as well, and then he went back to massaging her tense shoulders properly.

"Do you think the last girl is still alive?" Nikki asked after a few minutes.

Harry stopped what he was doing, resting his hands on her shoulders. "I don't know. It looks as if Madeline went missing around the time Katie died, and Leo said Madeline's been dead for three or four days. Lucy Mortimer disappeared four days ago."

Nikki nodded, shrugging her shoulders to get him to go back to work and he smiled at the back of her head. "So he takes a girl, does whatever it is he does and then kills her and gets a new girl," Nikki summed up.

"Probably," Harry agreed, working his thumbs in small circles up the edges of her shoulder blades.

"So until a new girl disappears we can assume Lucy's still alive." She paused, sighing. "And going through hell."

"There's nothing we can do about that," Harry told her, trying to keep his own frustration out of his voice. "All we can do is get as much information out of those girls as possible, and then hopefully that will help the police find her."

Nikki snorted derisively. "That's very comforting."

Harry grinned. "I'm sure Constance is very good at his job. He didn't get where he is today because of his winning personality, after all."

Nikki laughed.

"I'm glad to see the two of you are at least enjoying yourselves," Leo said sarcastically, watching them from the end of the row of lockers.

Nikki turned around to look at Leo and Harry took a quick step away from her. From the way Leo was smirking at him he assumed he wasn't just imagining the look of guilt on his own face.

"How's Detective Simmons?" Nikki asked, either ignoring or not noticing the look passing between the two men as she adjusted her scrubs, which had been twisted around her body by Harry's efforts.

"Bit green around the gills," Leo said, walking further into the room. "But I think he'd have rather stayed and gone through it again than go talk to the girl's parents."

"Well, at least Constance isn't going on his own. Imagine having him deliver a message like that in between orders barked into his mobile," Harry said.

"He's not really that bad," a female voice said from where Leo had appeared moments before and Harry looked up guiltily. Anna Sterne was leaning against the corner of the first locker, watching them.

"I'm sorry, I was only--" Harry began, but she cut him off.

"I don't give a toss, Doctor Cunningham. You can say whatever you like about him. Lord knows I do." She shrugged. "But he's good at that part. Dealing with the relatives."

"Then why did he want one of you to come along?" Nikki asked.

"Because he doesn't know the family. Dave and I have been on the case since Katie disappeared. We know everyone and they know us. The Groves are comfortable with Dave, they know he cared about Madeline. The thing with Charles is, he's an arsehole, but he's good at what he does. Very good."

"Do you think he's better than you?" Harry asked, ignoring the look Nikki shot him.

"I spent almost four weeks on this case and I came up with nothing. He's been in charge for less than four days and he's already managed to come up with two dead bodies. So far I'd say he's in the lead," Sterne said flatly.

"I would think the goal was to find the girls _alive_," Leo admonished.

"Oh wow," the DI said sarcastically. "Why didn't _we_ think of that?"

She started to walk away but then turned back to look at Nikki. "The creepy-crawlies. Were they all from the dump site, or could some of them have been from where she was kept?"

"Possibly," Nikki said. "I'll need to look at them in more detail before I can say anything."

"Okay, thanks." She grinned. "If Constance calls, tell him I'm in there--" she pointed behind her towards the cutting room with her thumb, "--with all the lovely scalpels."

Harry was the only one who laughed.

Leo sighed when he heard the door open and then close behind her. "She really shouldn't be in there on her own."

"Oh relax, Leo," Harry sighed. "She's not _actually_ going to slit her wrists."

Leo rolled his eyes. "I meant she isn't _allowed_ to be there without the presence of a Home Office pathologist."

Nikki got to her feet with a sigh. "I'll go. I need to get to work on those bugs, anyway."

* * *

Harry looked up from his computer screen when he heard the sound of a man clearing his throat. He expected it to be Nigel, who had gone out half an hour ago to get sandwiches for everyone for lunch, and wondered why he didn't just walk on in, but instead he saw the uniformed policeman who had been present for the PMs. If possible, he looked even more uncomfortable now.

"DI Sterne?" He asked, looking like he hoped Harry would tell him she wasn't there.

Harry smiled, wondering if this guy was just scared of everything. DI Sterne didn't seem remotely intimidating to him, merely tired and frustrated. He was also fairly sure she wasn't armed. "In the layout room, I think," he told the policeman, pointing him in the right direction.

The young man nodded and sighed deeply before walking off.

When he had gone Leo came out of his office. "Nigel still not back with those sandwiches?"

Harry shook his head. "No. But that twelve year old cop was just here looking for Sterne. He looked like he was about to be executed."

"Hmm," Leo said, frowning. "I think Nikki and that DI are up to something in the viewing room."

Harry cocked his head to one side. "What do you mean?"

Leo shook his head, sighing softly. "I don't know. I just know it has nothing to do with beetles."

Harry got to his feet, intrigued. "Let's go have a look, then."

"Yes, let's," Leo agreed, with rather more scepticism than enthusiasm.

Harry was about to reach out and pull open the door to the layout room when the young cop from before suddenly pushed through it, in a hurry to get away.

"I was never here," he called out over his shoulder and hurried down the hall where he collided with Detective Simmons, who was making his way up from the lobby.

"Steady on, soldier," Simmons told him, grabbing him by the shoulders.

Harry watched as the cop looked behind Simmons to see if he were alone and then visibly relaxed.

Simmons noticed, too, and grinned. "He's gone back to the station. Is DI Sterne here?"

The cop nodded, pointing back towards where Leo and Harry were standing, looking back at them, and then he finally managed to get away.

Harry, Leo and Simmons all walked into the layout room together.

DI Sterne was sitting by the computer that was hooked up to the large screens mounted on the wall, bringing up a number of assorted files and pictures on the screen. Nikki was leaning against a table, watching as the evidence from the case was unfolded before her. When she had finished her work on the computer, Sterne got up and walked to the screens where she began reorganising the files and images she had just opened, by moving them around on the touch-screen with her hand.

"I just love technology, don't you?" She said without turning around, a smile in her voice, as she pulled up an unflattering picture of a woman in her sixties.

Next to Harry, Simmons laughed. "He's going to kill you."

Sterne shrugged and blew up the picture until it was so large that the old woman's thick black nose hairs were showing. "Stupid old bitch," she muttered. Harry guessed that this must be the Hillcrest Academy headmistress.

"Nikki, what's going on?" Leo asked.

Nikki turned her head to look at them. "Anna and I were talking about the case and she had an idea." She waved a hand at the screens, letting them explain the rest.

Harry walked over to sit next to Nikki on the edge of the steel table, waiting for Sterne to finish. Leo followed him, moving to stand on Nikki's other side. Simmons stayed in the doorway.

"You mustn't think that I mind a bit of internal strife, but don't you think you should've cleared this with Constance?"

"But he'd just say no," Sterne replied with child-like logic, pulling a face.

Simmons snorted with laughter. "Yes, he would."

Finally, Sterne turned around to look at him. There was an amused but determined look on her face. "What's he going to do? Suspend me? I'm not even supposed to be here in the first place."

"What, so that gives you a carte blanche to do whatever you want?"

"It does with Charles. He brought me in without clearing it properly. If I fuck up, it's all on his head." She grinned. "I've got a doctor's note saying I'm unfit for duty. I'm just trying to live up to that."

Simmons rolled his eyes, throwing up his arms in resignation. "Go on then, hang yourself."

"Thank you," Sterne said, smiling. "Anyway, it wasn't my idea to begin with."

Harry and Leo both looked at Nikki, who shook her head.

"Professor Death here," Sterne went on, waving a hand at Leo and still talking to Simmons. "Suggested very cleverly that we ought to try to find the girls alive, which..." She waved a hand towards the cutting room. "Well, you know. So I thought we'd turn things around a little. We're coming up with the dead, so why not let the people who deal with the dead come up with the living?" As she said this she turned around to look straight at Leo. "Now you have what we have. Knock yourselves out."

Even from two feet away Harry could hear Leo sigh and take in a deep breath, and he knew his boss would spend it on telling DI Sterne that this was not proper procedure. Right next to him, Nikki was almost buzzing with curiosity and Harry knew she felt the same way he did about the words that were bound to come out of Leo's mouth.

Standing up, he hurried to say something before Leo got the chance to. "Walk us through it," he said, looking at DI Sterne.

She smiled, looking at Leo, who seemed resigned. Harry guessed that he hadn't really _wanted_ to protest, he only felt like he had to, being the boss and everything. Sitting back down next to Nikki Harry had to admit to himself that _not_ being the boss had its advantages sometimes.

"October fifth," Sterne began, pulling up a picture of a small blonde girl in a blue and white school uniform. The girl was smiling at the camera, and four of her teeth were missing. "Katie Wilder is on her way home from school. Mrs. Wilder usually picks her up, but on this day she has to go to a meeting. She's organising a charity. Katie has turned eight over the Summer, and has convinced mummy to let her make the trip on her own. It's a ten minute walk. At the end of school, Katie has a fight with her best friend Dennis, who lives in her street, so she walks home alone instead of with him, as planned. Somewhere between school and home, she disappears."

Sterne pulled up a map on the screen next to the photo of a smiling Katie. The school was marked with a small castle-like drawing, and there were three X'es on it, labeled 'W', 'G' and 'M' at varying distances from the castle, making up a triangle with the school near the middle. Sterne indicated the route between the castle and the X marked 'W' with a finger.

"It's four in the afternoon, yet there are _no_ witnesses saying they saw anything suspicious."

She shifted around the elements on the screen and a photo of a man and a woman in their thirties appeared. "The Wilders. He works in the City, upper management, she's a stay-at-home mum. There's a son as well, he's two. There were marital difficulties a few years back. He had an affair, she forgave him." Sterne shrugged. "She was pregnant. He ended the affair when she told him that. The other woman worked under him, she was transferred to their office in Boston when she kicked up a fuss over him finishing with her. Obviously she's not a suspect. The parents were, however, but we've been over them. Simmons chewed into the man like a rottweiler. He cried and confessed to once kissing a boy at Eton, but he didn't do anything to that girl."

All three pathologists looked at Simmons, who shrugged and nodded his head.

"The mum is lovely," Sterne went on. "Makes the best chocolate chip cookies you'll ever taste. A bit OCD in the kitchen, in fact. Murder's much too messy for her. The kids are her whole life. Audio from both interviews are on there." She pointed at the computer.

"October fifteenth," she began after a brief pause, bringing up a picture of another girl. She was sitting in a hammock, wearing a yellow sundress and a backwards baseball cap over her dark brown hair. She was sticking her tongue out at the camera, laughter in her eyes. All three pathologists recognised the girl Leo had autopsied a few hours before. "Madeline Groves is supposed to be picked up by her au-pair, who is late. There was a sale on at Debenhams, apparently. Madeline knows to wait by the school gate, and according to the au-pair this has never been a problem. But on that day, she wasn't there when the au-pair arrived. No one knows where she went.

"The au-pair's alibi checked out, we've got her on CCTV coming out of central London at the time Madeline disappeared. The Groves have already shipped her back to Finland. The parents," Sterne said, bringing up a family photo of a man and a woman with Madeline seated between them on a couch in a sparkly red dress, her hands in her lap. It was clearly a staged photo for Christmas cards. "Are both barristers. Very busy, very successful. Madeline is an only child, in-vitro. On the surface you might think it won't make much difference to them that she's gone. She's been brought up by a string of au-pairs since Elaine Groves went back to work six months after Madeline was born. But they're devastated, really. They just have such thick sticks up their arses from work it can be hard to tell. Their interviews are on there as well." She waved at the computer once more.

"Do the two families know each other?" Leo asked.

It was Simmons who answered. "They've met at Hillcrest a few times at school events, but they don't socialise. Katie and Madeline are in the same class, but they aren't close friends. When I talked to Madeline she said Katie prefers--preferred--playing with the boys. She didn't approve." He smiled sadly to himself.

"October 29th," Sterne said, a little more loudly than before to bring everyone's attention back to herself. "Lucy Mortimer." She had already brought up a picture of the girl, sitting by a table looking up from the homework spread out in front of her. There was a determined look on her face and she wasn't smiling.

Harry turned his head to look at Nikki, who was watching the picture of Lucy Mortimer intently. She was biting her lip and her eyes were brimming with sympathy for whatever this child was going through. Unseen by any of the others he brushed his hand over hers, trying to comfort her.

She started and looked up at him in surprise, but then she smiled, letting him know that she understood and appreciated his gesture.

"In spite of what Hillcrest are calling 'tightened security'," Sterne said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "Little Lucy managed to disappear on her way from her classroom to the school gate, where her mother was waiting for her."

"Wait," Harry interrupted. "She actually disappeared from the school grounds?"

"Yes," Sterne confirmed, nodding grimly. "Either that or she made it out the gate without any of the parents waiting for their kids spotting her. The school was searched by the staff, and then Mrs Mortimer rang the police."

Sterne pulled up an audio program and pressed play. A woman's panicked voice rang out loudly in the room. "Please," she cried. "My little girl. She's gone. Please."

"Madam, I need you to calm down please, and tell me what happened," a calm voice interrupted her.

"My little girl," Mrs. Mortimer repeated, her voice thick with despair. "She's disappeared from her school. I came to pick her up, but she isn't here."

"Have you asked around?" The emergency operator asked, somewhat patronisingly, Harry felt. "Talked to her teachers?"

"Yes!" Mrs Mortimer all but screamed. "We've looked everywhere. She goes to Hillcrest."

With the volume turned up so loud they all heard the emergency operator's sharp intake of breath. "Just one moment, madam, I'll connect you with the police."

Two seconds later the line went dead as the call was patched through and the emergency central could no longer record it.

"Obviously the Mortimers were never suspects," Anna Sterne said flatly, breaking the silence that had filled the room. "We narrowed down our search to people connected directly with the school. Staff, older students, anyone who could get _in_ there and not be noticed."

She pulled up a file with about forty small pictures on it, and the Hillcrest Academy logo at the top. She activated the brush tool in the photo editing program and drew circles around three of the small pictures as she spoke. "Everyone on staff has been accounted for, except these three. Headmistress Dorothy Miller, Gareth O'Corcoran, who teaches his very own version of history, and Christina Garner, who teaches art."

"Except," Simmons interrupted, walking up to stand next to her, facing Leo, Nikki and Harry. "Gareth and Christina _have_ alibis. Each other. Gareth confessed two days ago that they were going at it in the art supplies room at the time."

"And you believe them?" Leo questioned.

"There's an arse imprint on a second former's painting of Buckingham Palace that says it's true," Simmons said, grinning. "And a paint sample some _very_ lucky lab technician got to take out of Miss Garner's private areas."

"Two days later?" Nikki asked, incredulous. "That's some rather questionable personal hygiene. Are you sure she didn't... plant that?"

Harry snorted with laughter and saw that even Leo was smirking.

Simmons grinned, winking at her. "Lab says the paint samples are an exact match. She'd be hard-pressed to replicate the kid's mix of colours with that kind of accuracy. The hygiene issues are not my department, you'll have to ask the technician who took the sample. But now that you mention it," he added, "it does make me feel rather better about being stuck talking to Gareth O'Corcoran about the potato famine."

"So that just leaves the headmistress," Nikki concluded, looking at DI Sterne. "Do you suspect her? Is that why you were fighting?"

Sterne shook her head but pulled up the photo of Dorothy Miller all the same. "No. She's a sadistic old cow, but I doubt it her involvement extends beyond a complete incompetence and indifference. She's guilty of hindering a police investigation at best."

"Anna and the schoolmarm have a history," Simmons said.

"Really?" Nikki asked, looking at her.

Sterne smiled humourlessly. "I went to Hillcrest. She was headmistress back then as well. _At least_ half the things that are wrong with me are down to her."

"But this narrows the list of suspects down to none," Harry said.

"Yes, it does," Sterne agreed, looking at Leo. "So now what?"

Leo shifted in his half-seated position. "There's really no-one else?"

"Of course there's someone else," Sterne spat out. "There's the actual perp. We just have no clue who that is."

"But hopefully your forensic evidence will make a difference," Simmons said diplomatically.

"What the bloody hell is going on here?" DCI Constance's loud voice boomed suddenly from the doorway, where he stood staring at the evidence from his case spread out on the wall of the layout room.


	4. Some People Kill For Less

**CHAPTER 3: Some People Kill For Less**

Simmons cleared his throat, his eyes trained on the ground. Harry noticed that he didn't look the least bit ill at ease.

"I was just refamiliarising myself with the case," DI Sterne said brightly. She, too, looked completely comfortable. Clearly DCI Constance didn't intimidate either of them.

"And practising your public speaking skills at the same time, I see," Constance said sarcastically.

Sterne pulled a face. "Multi-tasking. Being a man, you'll never understand the concept."

Simmons snorted with suppressed laughter, shuffling his feet.

Harry looked at Constance, expecting him to have turned puce with rage by now, but the DCI was staring at the blow-up of Dorothy Miller, his face impassive. "You've got an appointment with Doctor Pennington at one thirty, he'll clear you for duty," he said to Sterne. His voice was curt, but not much more so than usual.

The DCI then turned on the pathologists. "The Groves are coming in this afternoon to formally ID Madeline," he said, addressing himself to Leo, who nodded. "How long before DNA results come back to confirm that the other body is Katie Wilder?"

"Tomorrow morning," Harry told him. He had sent a sample from body off to the lab, along with the sample the police had supplied from Katie's home, right after finishing the PM.

Constance nodded, his eyes going back to Dorothy Miller. "We're sure it's not her?" He asked DI Sterne. Harry thought he could hear just a trace of insecurity in his voice.

Sterne reactivated the brush tool and drew fangs and horns on the picture, then took a step back to evaluate her work. "We're sure," she confirmed.

Next to him Harry heard Nikki laughing softly and he smiled, too.

"Okay, then," Constance said, sounding more confident now. "So we start over, from scratch. Pretend we don't already know what every one of these people had for dinner every day the last four weeks. Re-interview everyone, go over the school again, the students. Have we talked to all the sixth-formers?"

"Charles, we don't have _time_ to start over," Sterne sighed. "_Lucy_ doesn't have time for that. You're just going to have to trust that I didn't fuck up."

He looked at her sharply. "I _never_ said that, Anna. If that's what I thought, do you think I'd be wasting my time bringing you back?"

Sterne ignored him, turning to look at Harry, Nikki and Leo. "Obviously we're missing something. No criminal is this good. You're the ones with a degree in anal retentiveness. Find the needle."

Constance snorted scathingly, but Nikki stood up. "We have two needles already. Katie and Madeline." She walked over to the screen and Sterne and Simmons both stepped back to give her room. She pulled up the autopsy photographs of both girls.

"We know he doesn't just kill the girls right away," Nikki began. "He keeps them somewhere. He feeds them, and he gives them clothes. None of the girls were wearing their school uniforms when we found them. The clothes are old, maybe from a charity shop."

Constance immediately perked up. "Wasn't the Wilder woman doing some charity work?"

"She was organising a dinner. £400 for hors d'oeuvres and a chance to meet some has-been footballer. It's not exactly Oxfam," Sterne said.

"There was tissue under both girls' fingernails," Nikki continued, ignoring the annoyed look on Constance's face as his idea was shot down. "It's likely to be the killer, so we could have his DNA now. Even if there's no match on file, it'll be something to test suspects against."

Harry shifted in his seat, meeting Nikki's eye. This was forensics 101, there was no way they didn't know it already. She turned slightly, hiding her face from the police officers, and made a face that was clearly meant to say, "We need to tell them _something_." He nodded in agreement.

Maybe stating the obvious was the way to go with this.

Simmons seemed to agree, because he was looking from Nikki to Constance, clearly trying to bridge the gap between them. "The DNA is something," he said at last. "This _is_ progress."

"It's two eight-year-olds in a morgue, is what it is," Constance snarled. "Yesterday there was a chance all three girls were still alive. This isn't progress."

"I thought they were _all_ dead yesterday," Sterne said in a low voice. "Us not finding Lucy's body is progress for me."

"We focus on Lucy," Leo said. "There's a chance we could find her alive, that should be our priority. But we need time to process the evidence."

"At least now there _is_ evidence, though," Nikki added, her eyes on Sterne, who was staring at the picture on the screen as if it were talking to her.

The DI seemed to shake herself out of her trance at the sound of Nikki's voice. "Progress," she repeated, smiling slightly at Nikki and then turning to Constance. "I should go. Meet you back at the station?"

Constance nodded and got his mobile out of his pocket as it began to ring shrilly. "We should get going as well. We need to talk to the other families. The press are going berserk over this, it's already all over the news."

Simmons grinned and looked at Nikki, Harry and Leo in turn. "Are you lot ready for your close-ups?"

"Of course," Nikki said. "Harry was born to be on telly. Look at that face."

"Oh, god," Leo groaned.

* * *

Harry was alone in the viewing room, reading through some of the case notes that Sterne had left behind and Constance had pretended not see. Nikki had finally gone to sort out her bugs and Leo had been forced to leave for a meeting, making his way out of the building through the throng of reporters and cameramen. He had sent Harry a text from his car, saying Constance hadn't been joking about the media attention, and Harry should probably sort out his hair before going outside.

The photo of the Hillcrest headmistress, bushy eyebrows, sulky expression and all, still dominated the screen on the wall, and Harry was starting to fell uncomfortable under her mean glare. There was something unsettling about the photo.

Sighing deeply, he gave up and walked over to the screen to remove the picture. When he did, the overview of the Hillcrest staff filled the screen instead.

He looked at the three circled-in faces. In this photo Dorothy Miller looked very different. Her hair was done up much less severely, and she was smiling slightly. She looked strict, but in a way that was probably comforting to parents. She gave the impression of being the sort of woman who would see to it that your kid knew his French verb conjugations and that he ate his broccoli. It was the perfect look, really, for the headmistress of a public school with a reputation for producing Oxbridge students.

He wondered where the other photo had come from and suspected that DI Sterne was probably responsible for it. Clearly the face Mrs. Miller projected to the public was not the one Sterne knew from her own childhood.

The Art teacher, Christina Garner, appeared to be in her twenties. Her smile was warm and inviting, and even in the small picture Harry could see a bit of paint on her forehead. Harry grinned to himself as he remembered Nikki's scepticism about the paint sample. Somehow he wasn't really surprised that a woman who couldn't manage to clean her face for a photo didn't bother about washing paint off other parts of her body, either. But it did seem unlikely that someone that distracted could pull off abducting three kids without being caught.

Gareth O'Corcoran had greying hair that looked very much in need of a trim, and he was wearing a green tweed jacket, with the collar turned up on one side of his face and turned down on the other. Harry leaned in to look at it more closely. His own father had owned a jacket exactly like that one. O'Corcoran wasn't smiling in his photo. He looked like the sort of man who couldn't be bothered with trivial matters like staff photographs. There was nothing unnerving about the look on his face, it was just that he wasn't bothered with the present.

Harry frowned, not at all satisfied with the choice of suspects. He minimised the photo editing program with a finger and the desktop became visible behind it. Sterne had copied folders onto it, one labelled with each girl's name at the top, and then more underneath those tree, labelled 'Staff', 'Students', 'Paedos on file' and 'Media'.

Harry opened the 'Media' folder. The first file on the list was a video of the press conference with all three sets of parents from three days ago. Harry pressed on the file and a media player opened. This was not media footage, it had been filmed by the police. The press conference hadn't started yet and DCI Constance was up on the makeshift stage with the six parents.

Two of the mothers were in tears, and their husbands were comforting them. The third couple were talking to Constance. "I just can't understand why Anna couldn't continue on the case," Mr. Groves was saying. "I can see why she can't be in charge, obviously, but she should be _involved_."

Constance looked uncomfortable. "Mr. Groves, DI Sterne has had to remove herself from the case for personal reasons," he said.

Mrs. Groves snorted. "Personal reasons? That's a laugh. We're friendly with the Chief of Police, DCI Constance, don't try to placate us with your diplomatic rubbish. We know what happened."

Constance looked at her shrewdly and called her bluff. "That's odd, because the Chief of Police has no idea what went on."

Mrs. Groves scowled at him, and her husband put a soothing hand on her shoulder. "It's just that we want to make sure this case is being handled the best way possible, Chief Inspector," he said. "Not that we don't have faith in you, but Anna... We know her. She knows everything about this case."

Constance nodded. "I understand," he said placatingly, and Harry was surprised to find that what Sterne had said was true. He did deal with the families well. "But right now Anna isn't what's best for this case, and I assure you that I have been following the investigation closely from the very beginning."

"Yes, well," Mrs. Groves sighed. "Perhaps a new pair of eyes _is_ what we need."

Detective Simmons walked in from the left and stopped next to Constance, smiling briefly but sincerely at the Groves. "We need to get started, sir."

Constance nodded and instructed everyone to sit down. The weeping mothers wiped their eyes with the hands that weren't clinging to their husbands.

Constance introduced himself to the press and made a brief statement about the investigation and then announced that Mrs. Mortimer would like to address the public, before he stepped off the stage and out of view.

Mrs. Mortimer was holding up a photograph of Lucy, the same one that was in the police file and that had been plastered all over the news for four days now, and tears were streaming down her face again. She was looking at a point slightly to the right of the police-operated camera, and Harry knew she was looking into the one that had been set up by the BBC.

She was talking about all three girls, calling them by their names again and again, and Harry knew she had been instructed by the police to do that. He wondered now, just as he had done when he first saw the press conference on the news, if she wasn't overdoing it a bit.

"Do you still think it's one of them?" Nikki asked suddenly from behind him and he turned around to look at her.

"It can't be, can it?" He asked, sighing. "The police already ruled them out. And I don't see how they would've managed it. Not with Lucy disappearing from the school itself."

"No," Nikki agreed, coming to stand next to him in front of the screen. "It must be someone from the school."

Harry smirked. "Still not buying the paint alibi?"

She grinned. "Will you get over it. You're as bad as Detective Simmons."

"Yeah? Well, Detective Simmons wasn't actually qualified to do the swab. I am."

Nikki looked at him and rolled her eyes. "Are you really?" She teased. "Because I have to admit I've wondered sometimes."

He smirked. "Oh, I'm _very_ qualified," he assured her, a glint in his eye.

"If I see any 25-year-olds I'll be sure to pass that on," she promised.

"It's because I'm not a paramedic, isn't it?" He asked, frowning in feigned confusion. "As a doctor I do actually have _better_ medical training."

She tried to look at him severely, but a smile was lurking just beneath the surface, threatening to appear at the slightest provocation.

"I can make a little diagram if you'd like," he offered, pulling up the photo editing software on the screen.

Nikki broke down laughing. "Please don't, Harry, I don't think I could stand it."

"So you'll take my word for it?"

"Gladly," she assured him.

"Good," he said, resting an elbow on her shoulder. "Because I'm not sure I could, really."

She laughed softly. "Would you like me to show you?"

"Yes, that would be wonderful," he said enthusiastically.

She shook him off, still laughing, and walked over to the table. "In your dreams, Harry."

He stared at her. She had her back turned on him, looking at the papers he had spread out, which was probably lucky, Harry thought. It meant she missed the look of shock and hunger that fell over his face at her words.

He shook his head in frustration. It wasn't as if he'd never had a dream like the one tonight before, and he was used to dealing with it. But even if he wasn't actually worried he'd lose control of himself and throw her up on the table and have his way with her, that didn't mean he didn't wish the neurons in his brain would fire their random signals in a different direction than the area connected to his groin.

* * *

The man was in his armchair, a newspaper in his hands. There was a picture on the front page of a mother and a father, sitting behind a table on a makeshift stage. The father had his arm around the mother, and the mother was looking directly at the camera.

She was crying.

The man smiled to himself, touching a finger to her face, pretending that he could feel the wetness of her tears through the ink on the page.

He hadn't read the story so he didn't know who the mother was, but he didn't care, anyway. All that mattered was that she was crying.

And it was all thanks to him.


	5. Look Right Through Me

A/N: I've been struggling with this chapter for so long now that I'm not sure if it even makes any sense any longer, but I'm sick to death of it so now I'm just going ahead and posting it so I can get on with the story (and my life).

* * *

**CHAPTER 4: Look Right Through Me**

When Leo came back from his meeting Harry and Nikki were at their desks, working. None of them seemed to notice his arrival. He stood for a moment in front of the door to his office, watching them, waiting for them to realise he was there. Nikki looked up from her papers, but it was only to glance briefly at Harry and then she went back to work. Seconds later Harry looked up at Nikki and Leo grinned to himself.

Harry was completely oblivious to the noise of the door opening and him walking in, but all Nikki had to do was look at him and he reacted, however unconsciously.

Nikki brushed a bit of hair out of her face and sighed softly, and Harry frowned, still watching her. The look on his face made Leo feel like he was intruding on something private and he finally cleared his throat loudly to let them both know that he was there.

Nikki started and looked around, and Harry's eyes travelled the short distance from Nikki's face to Leo's as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat, knowing he had been caught.

Leo wondered, not for the first time, how long they would keep up this slow and elaborate mating dance before they finally found themselves in the same place at the same time. Despite some, he felt, fairly justified worries that they would make a complete mess of it, he couldn't help wishing that they would get there soon.

Someone would regret it if they didn't.

"How was the meeting?" Nikki interrupted his thoughts.

Leo shrugged off his coat. "Tedious."

Harry leaned over his desk, towards Nikki. "Look at him, trying to pretend he doesn't love being the boss of everyone," he mock-whispered.

Nikki grinned, managing to look apologetically at Leo at the same time, as if she were sorry to be laughing at Harry's stupid jokes but unable to help herself.

Leo shook his head at both of them. "Have the Wilders been in to see the body?"

"No, not yet" Nikki said. "We've had to field a few calls from the media, though. Reporters claiming to be relatives manage to get through reception."

Leo sighed. "People were asking about it at the meeting as well. Let me know when they get here, I have some paperwork I can't put off any longer," he told them before disappearing into his office and closing the door behind him. He knew Harry would be embarrassed now and say something insensitive or try to pick a fight with Nikki in an attempt to bury himself in denial, and Leo would rather not have to listen to it.

Harry, however, was too preoccupied by thoughts he didn't want to share to say anything. That was twice in one day Leo had given him knowing looks, which really wasn't fair. After all, if only Leo had let him sleep through his dream last night he might've woken up three hours later without even remembering it, and his mind wouldn't be going straight to 'sex' every time he looked at Nikki just because his Id felt they had unfinished business.

"Do you think there's any chance we'll actually find Lucy alive?" Nikki asked, looking at him thoughtfully.

Harry was saved from having to come up with an appropriate reply when the door swung open and an attractive woman walked in, smiling at him across the room.

"Hiya," the woman said and Nikki turned around to look as well.

"Anna," Nikki greeted her warmly and Harry did a double-take.

DI Sterne noticed and laughed at him. "I clean up quite well, don't I?" She asked him jokingly.

Nikki turned around to look at Harry, laughing at the incredulous look on his face. He had to admit to himself that she did, actually.

Sterne had changed out of her scruffy clothes and was wearing a knee-length green skirt and a white and green-striped shirt under a form-fitting cream coloured jacket. Her hair had been done up neatly and her make-up was immaculate. Her worn-out trainers had been replaced by a pair of black heels that clicked loudly against the floor as she walked over to them.

"I will admit I'm overcompensating a bit," she told them.

"Why?" Nikki asked.

"We're going on a field trip," Sterne said. "That is, if the professor will let you." She knocked on the door to Leo's office and then opened it without waiting for an answer.

Nikki and Harry both watched as Leo looked up at her in surprise and then waved her in.

"Can I borrow those two for a few hours?" She asked, nodding her head at them.

"Of course," Leo agreed, secretly pleased that she bothered to ask him. "What for?"

"We're going to Hillcrest. And we're in a bit of a hurry, actually, because school lets out in about half an hour," Sterne said, looking at her watch.

Harry and Nikki both took the hint and got to their feet.

"We'll be swabbing the staff for DNA," Sterne added, looking at them. "So bring your toys."

"I'll go get extra swab kits," Nikki said and walked off.

"We're testing everyone?" Harry asked.

"Yes," Sterne confirmed. "Is that a problem?"

"No," Harry said, shaking his head and pulling on his jacket. "Not if they agree to it."

"So you _are_ starting over?" Leo questioned her.

She shrugged. "Not really. We're not going to ask them any questions, just scrape a few cells from their cheeks."

Nikki returned, carrying a metal briefcase and pulling on her coat. "How did it go with the doctor, by the way?" She asked Sterne, as the three of them made their way to the exit.

Harry looked disapprovingly at Nikki but Sterne answered without hesitation. "Oh, it was lovely. We had a nice chat and a coffee. I've been reinstated. Conditionally."

"What's the condition?"

Sterne laughed briefly. "Oddly enough he didn't say."

"Hmm," Harry said, knowing she was lying and wondering why. "And they gave you back your gun?"

Sterne nodded, pointing to the holster hanging on her hip and then pushed open the door.

Outside, reporters were waiting for them, but Sterne pushed through the crowd as if she didn't see them at all, offering an occasional, "No comment," to a camera or dictaphone. Harry and Nikki followed her wordlessly, also ignoring the journalists throwing questions at them.

"They didn't give me any bullets, though," Sterne said jokingly when they had made it to her car. "But I expect just _pointing_ a Glock at someone will work very well as a deterrent."

Harry laughed and got in on the passenger side, leaving Nikki to sit in the back.

* * *

The man was pacing the living room, wringing his hands impatiently. He was yearning to go up to the school. He couldn't remember ever wanting anything this much. Not since he was a little boy.

He was desperate to be surrounded by it all. To see the fear in people's faces, the children huddled together, scared to go anywhere on their own.

All that agony, and he was missing it.

He was so happy the school hadn't been closed down. He had known that it wouldn't be, of course, but still. The police could have insisted, they could have told all the parents to keep their children at home.

They had probably tried, and failed.

If he could only go to the school, he sighed to himself. Maybe he would get lucky and one of the parents would be there. Crying.

He turned on the radio, but instead of news, information, despair, all he got was cheery pop songs. He turned the power button in disgust and the dank room fell silent once again.

He looked out the window, his eyes glazing over as the depressing scene before him changed and he saw what had been instead of what was.

Sunshine and laughter filled his mind.

There had been a tree-house up that old oak. They had played up there, for hours and hours, without a care in the world. Happy the way only innocent children can be.

But that was _before_.

His face hardened as the visions faded and he was once again looking out a dirty cracked window at what had once been the lawn. Around the window the torn wallpaper hung off the wall in scraps, showing off their greyish backside instead of the pattern of rosebuds on the front.

The man walked over to the wall and began tearing at the bits of wallpaper, trying to release some of his pent up tension.

From upstairs, he heard the sound of a girl coughing and he smiled to himself.

He didn't _need_ to go to the school. He had the girl. He thought for a moment, contemplating his options, and then walked upstairs.

"Lucy," he called out, knocking on the door.

The shuffling sounds from inside the room stopped immediately.

"May I come in, Lucy?" He asked.

"Yes," a frightened voice answered.

He opened the door slowly.

The girl was standing in a corner of the room, her eyes trained on his face, her body tense, ready for flight. He smiled and closed the door behind himself. She would not get another chance to escape, he had learned his lesson.

"How are you, Lucy?"

"Fine," the girl said defiantly.

He sighed. "No, you're not, Lucy. You're scared. Aren't you?" His voice was gentle, encouraging her to tell the truth.

"No," she insisted.

"You should be," he told her, still smiling kindly.

* * *

Harry looked through the wrought iron gate into the school grounds. Three massive ancient red brick buildings towered at the end of a gravelled lane, a fountain in front of the smaller central building. The grass on either side of the lane was mowed with the accuracy of a golf course. On one side of the buildings Harry could see tennis courts and an outdoor swimming pool in the distance, on the other side he was able to make out one end of an athletics track and what lookedl like stables.

"Posh," he said, as Sterne flashed her badge at the uniformed policeman guarding the gate and they were let through it.

She shot him a disbelieving look.

He shrugged, looking at Nikki for her opinion, but she was preoccupied watching three girls riding by on ponies. "I went to a good school," he explained himself. "But it wasn't as nice as this."

"Nothing's as nice as this," Sterne said, walking briskly towards the main building ahead of Harry and Nikki. "Not even this."

"You really hated it, then?" Nikki asked. The ponies had disappeared into a clump of trees.

Sterne shook her head. "It was school. I think you're meant to."

"No, you're not," Nikki protested. "You're meant to learn things, about the world and languages and geometry. You're meant to be safe and cared for."

Sterne snorted. "Where on earth did you go to school? With the Teletubbies?"

Harry grinned to himself, turning away from Nikki so she wouldn't see.

"No," Nikki said, frowning.

Sterne turned around to look at her and walked backwards up the broad stone steps to the massive oak doors with the ease of someone who has done it hundreds of times before. "Good. Because I don't think I'd trust Lala to know what to do with a mouth swab."

She pushed open the door and led them inside. They had arrived in the middle of a high-ceilinged hallway. Chandeliers lit up the passage and portraits of past kings and queens lined the opposite wall. A boy, who looked about six years old, was staring intently at Charles I.

"1625 to 1649," Sterne told the boy in a hushed voice. He looked up at her, his eyes huge with wonder.

"Thanks," he said gratefully and hurried off in the same direction they were going.

"No running in the halls, please," an older girl in a slightly too tight white shirt and a blue pleated skirt called out bossily as the boy ran past her. He slowed to a walk immediately and adjusted his tie nervously, shooting a worried glance at the older student's Head Girl badge.

The Head Girl then looked at the three adults walking past, her eyes landing on Harry. She looked him up and down slowly, and he did his best to ignore the almost wanton look in her eyes. He accidentally looked at Nikki, however, and saw that she was holding a hand in front of her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

"Shut up," he whispered to her through gritted teeth.

She giggled and looked behind her at the girl who was watching Harry through half-lidded eyes and biting her lip.

"What was that all about, with the boy?" Harry asked Sterne, mostly to distract Nikki.

"It's punishment," Sterne said, stopping in front of a closed door. "If you do something wrong, you're sent up here. Teacher wants a fact about a king or queen, and you have to stand here until someone gives it to you. You aren't allowed to ask anyone for help."

"That makes no sense," Nikki said.

"The human genome doesn't make sense to _me_," Sterne replied. "But I can tell you about every British monarch from William the Conqueror to Elizabeth II. Obviously it doesn't work once you memorise all the facts, which I suppose is the whole point. The more you know, the more you can get away with."

"Useful," Harry said grimacing at Nikki who shook her head, incredulous.

Sterne raised a hand to knock on the door but then caught herself and just pushed down the door handle.

They walked into a front office where a mousy woman in her forties was seated behind a desk, going through a stack of folders, checking off names on a list as she read them on the covers.

"Is she in there?" Sterne asked abruptly, pointing at a door across the office.

The woman looked up. "No," she said sharply, staring disapprovingly at them over the rim of her spectacles. "She's up at the house."

"Shame," Sterne said insincerely. "We need to talk to everyone on staff. We need DNA samples."

"Classes finish in seven minutes," the secretary said, completely indifferent. "You'll have to wait."

"That's fine," Sterne smiled. "We'll just start with you."

She waved a hand to indicate to Harry and Nikki that they should get ready, and Nikki put down her metal suitcase on the uncomfortable looking couch placed against the opposite wall from the desk. She swabbed the secretary's cheek and wrote down her details on the tube.

"Has everyone shown up for work today?" Sterne asked as the secretary rubbed her cheek and swallowed.

The secretary got out a list and Sterne rolled her eyes. "From the Junior School, yes," the secretary said. "From the Senior School, no. Gareth O'Corcoran is home sick. We've had to cancel his classes, we're not allowed any substitutes," she finished sourly, as if this was somehow DI Sterne's fault.

"You mean he hasn't come in at all today?" Sterne asked urgently.

The secretary's expression changed from annoyance to intrigue. "No. Not at all. He rang, just before eight. He didn't _sound_ ill," she added.

"Fuck," Sterne blurted out, looking from Harry to Nikki.


	6. Feeling Like The Old Man And The Sea

**CHAPTER 5: Feeling Like The Old Man And The Sea**

"I just don't believe it," Anna Sterne said as the door to the office closed behind them and they were back in the hallway. "Gareth isn't... He's out of his mind, obviously, but he's not... he was never _scary_."

"You can't always tell that someone's evil just from looking at them," Nikki said softly.

Sterne opened her mouth, a scathing reply clearly at the tip of her tongue, but then she sighed and pulled out her mobile. "I suppose not," she agreed as she dialled.

"Fuck it," she said, pressing more buttons. "Voicemail."

She dialled a different number and nodded to confirm that this time it was ringing. "Dave, it's me. Look, O'Corcoran didn't show up for work today."

There was a pause as Detective Simmons spoke on the other end.

"I _know_ that," Sterne said, frustrated. "But who's to say _she_ isn't lying. She could've been with _anyone_. Just tell Charles, okay. And have him call me," she added before hanging up.

The sound of a large bell ringing reverberated through the building suddenly, and moments later children were pouring into the hallway from both ends, smaller ones from the right and older ones from the left.

Scattered among them were their teachers, whose clothes made them stand out in the sea of blue and white uniforms. Most of the students hurried out of the building, but a few lingered, talking to their teachers, or throwing worried glances at Nikki, Harry and DI Sterne.

The teachers who were not giving out last minute instructions or admonitions all went through the same door, which Harry assumed let to the staff room. He noticed that this door, just like the one that led to the headmistress' office, was unlabelled.

Sterne's phone rang again and she answered it immediately, shooing a few small boys out of her way as she pushed against the current and led Nikki and Harry into an empty office. "Well?" She asked whoever was on the other end of the line as Harry closed the door behind him.

Harry looked at Nikki, who was watching Sterne intently, trying to figure out what her barked out yesses and noes meant.

Finally Sterne hung up, clearly annoyed. "We're staying here," she told them.

"What about O'Corcoran?" Harry asked.

"Constance is going to his house now. He'll ring when he gets there." It was obvious that Sterne wasn't happy with the plan. "We just stay put and get the bloody DNA samples."

Nikki took a step closer to Sterne. "So we do that," she told her. "Constance will be fine. You're the one who said how good he is."

Sterne snorted, amused, and Nikki smiled. "Besides, just because he didn't come to work, that doesn't mean O'Corcoran's guilty of anything."

Sterne rubbed her eyes with her thumb and index finger. "I have no idea what to say to that. If he _is_ guilty, then we're finally getting somewhere. But... I told them he didn't do it. After Katie. Simmons said he creeped him out, and I vouched for him." She opened her eyes and looked at Nikki. "If it's him and we missed something because I said... then those girls are dead because of me."

Nikki reached out and squeezed Sterne's arm. "Anna. You told Constance to trust that you hadn't fucked up. _You_ need to trust that, too."

Sterne took a deep breath and smiled weakly. "Thank you," she told Nikki and then looked at Harry. "Is she always this wise?"

Harry grinned and shook his head. "No."

"You know Gareth O'Corcoran, right?" Nikki asked, pointedly ignoring Harry. "Why did you trust him?"

Sterne sat down behind the desk and began fiddling nervously with a box of paper clips. It sprang open and the paper clips flew out, landing on the polished wooden surface of the table. "I don't know," she said, stringing paper clips together into a chain. "He never cared about the rules and the punishments. He just went about with his lessons and left us to ourselves. If we wanted to learn, we could just listen, if we didn't, he wasn't bothered."

"So he was nice to you?" Harry asked.

"Not really." Sterne picked up the chain, measuring it between her hands, and then added more paper clips. "I think he just never realised we were there. He was completely oblivious. But that also meant he didn't care about Headmistress Miller. She hired him right out of University, apparently. I think they might've known each other from before, but I'm not sure. All I know is, he was the only one she didn't bully."

Sterne stopped talking and seemed completely preoccupied by her paper clip chain. Nikki opened her mouth to say something, but Harry shook his head at her, and she closed it again.

He pointed at her suitcase, and she held it out to him. He took it and put it down on the desk, sweeping away Anna Sterne's paper clips. She ignored him, gathering them in a pile in front of her and going on with her chain.

Harry opened the suitcase and began preparing everything for the DNA swabs they would be doing soon. When there was nothing left for him to do without anyone to swab, he cleared his throat. "Anna. We need to get to work," he told her softly.

He could feel Nikki's eyes on his back and he turned to look at her briefly, then turned his attention back to Sterne.

He was about to open his mouth to tell her again that they needed to move when she looked up at him.

"Staff room," she said. "They'll all be in there. Except Gareth and the headmistress, obviously." She stood up and pocketed her chain of paper clips absent-mindedly and then walked out of the office ahead of Nikki and Harry.

Nikki stopped in the doorway, blocking Harry's way. "Do you think she's okay?"

"No," Harry answered, shaking his head. "But there's nothing we can do about it."

Nikki frowned, looking in the direction Anna Sterne had gone and Harry nudged her gently, to get her to follow the DI.

* * *

Lucy Mortimer was counting.

She counted cracks in the wall, stains on the window, nails in the floorboards. Anything that would get her into the high numbers and make her think about something else besides where she was and why she was there.

Because Lucy was beginning to understand.

She had realised who the man was, and why she was there. She didn't understand why, exactly, but she knew that she was going to die.

Die, the way Katie Wilder and Madeline Groves had died.

The man hadn't told her, but she knew that he had killed them.

They had been in this room, they had been fed by the man, and talked to, and then at some point, he had killed them.

Lucy had told him that she wasn't scared of him, but she knew he could tell that she was lying.

She didn't know why, but what had scared her the most was him suddenly calling her by her real name. As if it were more likely that he would kill if he knew she wasn't Evelyn.

He wanted her to be Evelyn, whoever that was.

She looked down at the dress he had given her and told her to put on when they first came to the house. These were probably Evelyn's clothes.

Maybe, if she could make him believe that she _was_ Evelyn, he wouldn't kill her.

She stood up and went to the window to look outside. It was late afternoon and the sun was setting. She pressed her face against the window, trying to get as wide a view of the surroundings as possible.

The windowpane was cold against her cheek and she shuddered, taking as step back. There was nothing out there. No houses, no signs of life at all.

She knew they were near a road, because they had walked from it, through tall grass and weeds, up to the house, but she was at the back of the building and all she could see was a stretch of garden, and then a dark forest that seemed to go on forever.

There was a sound from downstairs and Lucy froze, listening for the man's footsteps on the stairs, but instead she heard the front door slamming shut.

The man had left.

She ran to the door, pulling at the door handle as hard as she could, but the door didn't budge. She knew that it wouldn't, because it never had before. The man always locked the door carefully. But still, every time she heard him leave, she tried the door, just in case.

Giving up she, leaned against the door and slid to the floor slowly. The room was growing dark and without the sunlight it was even colder than during the day.

Her stomach growled and she kicked at the floor angrily with her heels. She wouldn't get anything to eat until the man came back and she refused to let herself look forward to his return.

* * *

"That just leaves Dorothy Miller," Harry told Sterne, sealing the last test and ticking off Andrew Warren on the list of names he and Nikki had worked from to make sure they got samples from everybody.

"Right," Sterne said, nodding thoughtfully. "I think you should probably just go up to the house yourself."

When Harry looked at her in surprise she pointed at one of the uniformed policemen standing outside the door. "Take Jones with you," she added.

The policeman turned to look at them, nodding at Sterne. "Yes, ma'am."

"Scared you're going to break something else?" Harry asked in a low voice, smiling.

Sterne grinned. "It is _possible_," she half-whispered, "that I got my gun back on the condition that if I shoot somebody it won't be myself, and it won't be Dorothy Miller."

Harry laughed loudly and Nikki turned around to look at him questioningly, a smile on her face. Clearly she hadn't heard what they had been talking about. He shook his head at her, still grinning. Nikki looked at Sterne, creases forming on her forehead, but she didn't say anything.

Harry walked over to her. "I'm going with... that guy," he pointed discreetly at the police officer, who was waiting for him by the door, "to get Dorothy Miller's DNA. Anna doesn't want to come along."

"What was she saying to you before?" Nikki asked.

"Nothing, just a stupid joke," Harry said dismissively, knowing Nikki wouldn't appreciate the humour.

"Hmm," she said, clearly also not appreciating being in the dark.

"Maybe the house is really far away," he joked. "We might have to go in a gilded carriage."

Nikki looked out the window at the setting sun and smiled. "How romantic. You two boys enjoy yourselves."

He snorted with laughter. "Thanks," he said and walked to the door, pocketing a swab kit as he went.

"Do you know where we're going?" He asked the policeman as they made their way down the hallway, past the kings and queens.

The policeman nodded, glancing at a painting of Elizabeth I as they walked past it. "Bonkers," he said, shaking his head.

"I don't think she was," Harry answered and the policeman shot him a look that clearly said, "I have no sense of humour."

They made their way down a different passage, and came out on the opposite side of the building from the main entrance. The school grounds stretched out in front of them, with the various outdoor sports facilities spread out on either side of a broad lane, leading from the school buildings to a small house, which seemed to tower over everything else.

The small fenced-in garden in front of the house was kept as neatly as the rest of the grounds, and a rosebed ran around as much of the building as Harry could see. Lights were on in the windows on the first floor, shining like beacons at them through the dusk.

The policeman walked briskly towards the house, and Harry hurried to keep up with him. They both stopped in front of the garden gate and after a brief pause the policeman pushed the gate open and waved a hand for Harry to walk through it first.

He did, and made his way up the narrow path to the front door and rapped on it.

Moments later the door opened and Dorothy Miller appeared, looking much more like DI Sterne's photo of her than the one from the school's information package. "Yes?" She asked sharply, holding on tightly to the door, her beady eyes moving between the two men.

"This is Doctor Cunningham, he's a pathologist. He needs to take a sample of your DNA," the policeman explained.

Dorothy Miller laughed coldly. "Pathologist? You can tell Anna Sterne that I haven't dropped dead quite yet. Just because you ask for something, that doesn't mean you get it."

Harry managed to keep a straight face. "It's simply to exclude you as a suspect, Ms Miller."

"Headmistress Miller," she corrected him and then added reluctantly. "Come in, then, if you must."

"Thank you, headmistress," Harry said, smiling.

She glared at him but then softened slightly, nodding her head. "The living room is through there."

Harry headed in the direction she was pointing and smiled to himself when he heard the headmistress admonish the police officer sharply, "Wipe your feet, boy."

Walking into Dorothy Miller's living room was like walking into a museum. Every piece of furniture seemed to be an antique, and the dark wood of the table and chairs that took up one end of the room had been polished to perfection. A sofa and two matching chairs, all green and with golden tassels hanging to the floor, were arranged around a television set that might not be new, exactly, but still seemed oddly modern and out of place.

One of the walls was covered by golden picture frames, each containing a photo of a young man or woman in a Hillcrest school uniform. It was like an overview of hairstyles for the last thirty years. Harry assumed these were Dorothy Miller's star pupils. Anna Sterne was not up there.

On another wall, between two windows with a view of the back garden, hung a single picture of a young girl. It was a black and white photograph and had obviously been professionally done. The girl, who looked about seven or eight, was posed carefully, standing next to a table with a vase of roses placed on a doily. She was wearing a knee-length dress with frills at the bottom and at the end of its puff sleeves. She had on a pair of white socks and black patent-leather shoes. There was something oddly familiar about her, but Harry couldn't place it.

"Would you like a cup of tea, Doctor Cunningham?" Dorothy Miller offered.

Harry shook his head. "That's very kind of you, but I'm afraid I'll have to swab and run. We have a lot going on out there," he said, waving a hand in the direction of the school buildings.

"Yes, I suppose you do," she agreed, not sounding the least bit upset by the fact that two of her students had turned up dead and a third one was missing.

Harry looked at the police officer in surprise, but her total lack of empathy didn't seem to strike him as odd at all.

Harry got the swab kit out of his pocket and prepared it, his eyes straying to the black and white photograph on the wall several times.

The headmistress noticed. "My daughter. She died just a few months after that photo was taken," she told Harry and opened her mouth to let him get his sample. For the first time, her voice registered emotion. "Yes, Evelyn was my pride and joy."


	7. Balancing On The Edge Of This Knife

I just have to say a huge "Thank you!" to wandrin_dreamer for helping me with the story and giving me all sorts of useful advice (and also for just being awesome in general). I think it will be a better story for it, and hopefully she agrees.

* * *

**CHAPTER 6: Balancing On The Edge Of This Knife  
**

When Harry got back to the school Nikki and Sterne were waiting for him, ready to leave. Sterne was shifting her feet impatiently, drumming her fingers against her thigh.

"Constance called," Nikki told him. "They have Gareth O'Corcoran in custody." It was clear from her tone that there was more to the story, but that she didn't want to say anything in front of DI Sterne.

"Apparently they also teach discretion at that lovely school of hers," Sterne said to Harry with an amused glance at Nikki.

"Yes. Dipsy teaches that class," Nikki said drily.

Harry laughed as Sterne coughed in surprise.

"I'm going back to the station for O'Corcoran's interview. We need his DNA as well. Do you both want to come, or...?" Sterne trailed off, looking from Nikki to Harry.

"We'll both come," Nikki said quickly, before Harry got a chance to suggest that _she_ go back to the morgue while he went with Sterne to the police station.

Harry smiled to himself and nodded in agreement.

"How did it go with Miller, by the way?" Sterne asked Harry as they all got in her car.

Harry grinned. "She said to tell you you don't always get what you want."

Nikki stared at him but Sterne shook her head and grinned back, knowing what he was referring to. "How did you like the headmistress, then?"

"She seemed like a sweet old lady to me," Harry joked.

"Yeah?" Sterne asked, revving up the car and glancing at Harry's ring-less hands. "Do you have kids?"

"No," Harry laughed. In the rear-view mirror he saw Nikki smiling. "Why?"

Sterne pulled into traffic and drove towards the police station. "Parents just always seem to like her. Maybe she thinks you have potential," she added, smiling to herself.

"Somehow I don't think you mean that as a compliment," Harry told her. His eyes met Nikki's in the mirror and she grinned, obviously not thinking it was a compliment, either.

* * *

Sterne led them through the busy bullpen of the police station into what Harry assumed to be Constance's office. Next to the door the wall was covered with evidence from the case, photographs of the girls and everyone connected with them, the map Sterne had shown them, a timeline of events and articles that had been cut from various newspapers.

Pictures of Katie and Madeline's bodies, taken in the park where the girls had been found, covered most of an article about Katie Wilder's adulterous father.

Simmons was sitting by a desk placed against the opposite wall and he turned around to look at them when they walked in. He nodded at Harry and smiled at Nikki before his eyes landed on Sterne. "Constance is in with him now. He said to tell you you're welcome to have a go if you'd like."

Sterne pulled off her jacket and hung it over a chair in front of Constance's desk, waving a hand for Nikki and Harry to do the same. "Yeah? What's he saying?"

Simmons shrugged. "Not much. He didn't feel like coming into work today."

"Well, we all know what that's like," Sterne said sarcastically, unhooking her belt and throwing it on the desk.

Simmons eyed the gun and grinned. "What did the doctor say?"

"That smoking's bad and I should eat lots of veggies."

"A psychiatrist told you that?" Simmons asked sceptically.

"I thought it was a bit weird, too."

"Especially as he goes through two packs a day himself and you haven't smoked in years," Simmons said, scratching the back of his head.

Sterne turned around and smiled at Nikki and Harry, waving a hand at the door to let them know that it was time to go.

They followed her down a hallway until she stopped in front of two doors with a red light turned on over one of them. She opened the other one and walked in ahead of them.

They were in an observation room, and through a large pane of glass they could see the interrogation room where DCI Constance was talking to Gareth O'Corcoran. Sterne pressed a button on the wall and the conversation in the other room was suddenly audible.

"--are dead. You understand that, don't you?" Constance was saying, his voice hard. He was walking back and forth behind his chair by the table, his eyes never leaving O'Corcoran.

The history teacher sat quite calmly, his hands folded neatly on the table. He was looking around the room, completely unaffected by Constance's obvious agitation. It was hard to tell if he was listening, or even aware of where he was.

Sterne leaned against the back wall of the observation room, crossing her arms over her chest. Harry saw that Nikki was watching O'Corcoran closely, and he knew she was trying to decide if he did look evil or not.

"It's terrible, what happened to those girls," Gareth O'Corcoran said, his eyes on the mirror through which Nikki, Harry and Sterne were all looking back at him, unseen.

"Yeah? You don't seem very upset," Constance told him, stopping in front of his chair.

"Six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust. Does that upset _you_?" O'Corcoran asked back, his voice distant.

Sterne laughed humourlessly and Harry and Nikki both turned to look at her, but her eyes were fixed on O'Corcoran.

"Of course it does," Constance said quickly, frustrated, pushing the chair hard against the table. O'Corcoran blinked at the noise, but didn't react beyond that. "But that's history, this is happening right now."

"One day, this will be history, too," O'Corcoran said, finally looking directly at the DCI. "I doubt that anyone will remember it."

Constance clenched his fists in anger, walking around the table to stand behind O'Corcoran, and Sterne pushed away from the wall with a sudden movement and walked quickly over to the intercom hanging next to the two-way mirror. She pressed the button to make herself heard in the interrogation room.

"I have Doctor Alexander here to get a sample, Sir," she said in a monotone.

Constance and O'Corcoran both stared at the mirror, surprised by the interruption, but then Constance nodded curtly and waved a hand for Nikki to come in.

With a brief look at Harry, Nikki left the room and appeared moments later on the other side of the glass.

"Was that Anna?" O'Corcoran asked her.

Nikki glanced at Constance and then got her swab kit ready without saying anything.

"Was it?"

"Yes," Constance told him at last.

"I want to talk to her. Please." O'Corcoran was still addressing Nikki, completely ignoring the DCI.

Harry saw Nikki's eyes narrow at the urgency in O'Corcoran's voice. Constance waited for Nikki to finish and then he walked out with her. It took a while before they came through the door to the observation room and Harry guessed they were talking in the hallway.

When they finally appeared, Nikki was visibly upset and she walked quickly to stand on Harry's other side, as far from Constance as she could get.

Harry looked at her questioningly but she simply shook her head, glancing at Sterne and then turning to look at O'Corcoran through the glass, concern on her face. He knew it was for Anna, not the suspect.

"Get him talking," Constance told Sterne. Harry noticed that his eyes shifted briefly to Nikki and he thought that whatever she had said to him might not have changed his mind, but it had clearly got him thinking.

Sterne leaned against the glass pane, her back to O'Corcoran, and looked at Nikki. "What did you think?" She sounded genuinely interested.

Nikki shook her head. "I don't know."

Sterne nodded and left the room. When she entered the interrogation room O'Corcoran looked up at her and smiled. "Anna. You're back."

She raised her eyebrows and nodded her head slightly in greeting and sat down across from him at the table, turning her back on the observation room. "The Holocaust, Gareth? Really?" She sounded slightly amused.

"He's an arse," Gareth said, as if he were explaining something simple. "I don't like him."

Sterne's shrugged. "I don't like him either, so I guess I can't blame you."

Harry looked at Constance, but the DCI was too busy trying to watch both the interview and Nikki to notice. He didn't seem to mind Sterne's admitted dislike of him. Harry shifted, blocking his view of Nikki.

Constance turned without looking at Harry, giving the interview his full attention.

"Tell me about Miss Garner," Sterne was saying, her voice calm.

O'Corcoran shrugged, looking at the wall. "A sordid affair."

"She's engaged to be married, isn't she?"

He met her eyes. "Is she? I didn't know that."

Sterne shook her head. "You're in a lot of trouble here, Gareth. It's time to stop lying."

"Why on earth am I in trouble? Is there a law against skiving off school? And they've left you in charge of upholding it," he said, smiling. "The irony isn't exactly subtle."

"Actually my job is to stop little girls dying," she told him. "But I suppose it still applies."

"Are you angry with me for lying to you?"

Constance shifted eagerly. Clearly he thought O'Corcoran was about to confess something. Somehow Harry thought not. He glanced at Nikki, whose brow was furrowed as she looked at O'Corcoran.

"I just want you to tell me the truth," Sterne answered.

O'Corcoran waved around the interrogation room. "You already know the truth."

Sterne shifted in her seat. "What do you mean?"

O'Corcoran smiled, an almost sad look in his faraway eyes. "You're here, aren't you? I would think it was obvious."

"Gareth. Did you hurt those girls?"

He looked startled, as if he hadn't expected the question at all. "No. I don't even _know_ them."

"Then what the hell are you talking about?" Sterne was clearly frustrated but trying to hide it.

O'Corcoran looked down at his hands, once again folded on the table. He looked ashamed. "I meant back then. Are you mad that I lied to you? That I said it would get better."

Constance swore.

Sterne sighed, her shoulders sagging. "No. You said what you had to say, it was the right thing to do. But you need to do the right thing again, and this time that means telling the truth. I'm grown up now, I can handle it."

O'Corcoran smiled. "Okay. It's a crap world out there, and it only gets worse when you leave school."

"And what about Katie, Madeline and Lucy?"

"I don't know them. I've seen their pictures in the newspapers, I think I might recognise them from the school, but I'm not sure. Memories can be tricky, can't they? Sometimes I'm quite certain I remember the Battle of Trafalgar, but that seems unlikely, doesn't it?"

"Oh, for crying out loud," Constance snarled and Harry and Nikki both turned to look at him. "This is a complete waste of time," he told them angrily.

Nikki looked back at him scathingly.

"So tell me why you didn't come in to work today. You never missed a lesson when I was at school."

O'Corcoran sighed. "I do know Christina is engaged. I didn't at first, I would have never presumed to... It's not the proper thing to do. But then I suppose there's nothing proper about it at all."

Sterne leaned back in her seat, waiting for him to continue on his own.

"She asked me not to tell anyone about us, but that detective, Simmons I think his name was, convinced me--" he smiled humourlessly "--that it would be better to tell the truth."

"And?" Sterne prodded.

"Mr. Bowles found out about it, and of course he didn't take it very well."

"That's the fiance," Constance said, for Nikki and Harry's benefit, his eyes still on O'Corcoran.

"What did he do?" Sterne asked.

"Well," O'Corcoran said carefully. "He visited me in my home and suggested that I stay away from Christina for a few days."

"He threatened you," Sterne concluded.

"I suppose that is one way of putting it," O'Corcoran agreed. "It's all so crass. I really rather regret it, now."

"I've met Jimmy Bowles. I think I'd regret it, too," Sterne agreed and stood up. "I'll talk to my boss about getting you home, but don't leave town, all right?"

O'Corcoran nodded indifferently, his mind already somewhere else.

Sterne left him to it and joined the others in the observation room. "See," Nikki told her. "He didn't do it."

"I think we'll hold off on our conclusions until we talk to the fiance," Constance said coldly. "And do you really think it's a good idea to just let him go?" He added, glaring at Sterne.

Sterne smiled at Nikki, ignoring Constance. She had already come to her conclusion. "You lot should probably get back to the morgue. Those samples aren't going to process themselves in your suitcase."

"No, that would probably be expecting too much," Harry agreed.

"Come on, I'll get a car to take you back," she told them before looking at Constance. "I'll get Simmons, we'll go talk to Jimmy Bowles to make sure. He didn't do it, let it go and move on," she told him insistently.

Constance nodded, looking at Gareth O'Corcoran with obvious disappointment.

* * *

It had been dark outside for a long time now, probably hours, and the man still hadn't come back. Lucy wondered if he wouldn't come back at all – would he just leave her there to starve to death? Was that what had happened to Katie and Madeline?

Lucy had no real idea of how long it took to die from starvation, but her stomach was hurting so much from hunger that she thought it couldn't take very long.

She thought about going to sleep, or at least trying to, but she didn't want to risk the man coming back without her realising it. She told herself that this was why she stayed awake, it had nothing to do with the memory of her grandmother dying last year. Lucy's parents has said that she had died in her sleep, as though that was comforting, and back then it _had_ been, somehow, but now it was a terrifying thought, that you could just fall asleep and die.

Without even getting the chance to fight it.

Lucy had always been a fighter. She had never really understood what her father meant when he said it, because he always looked so proud, and Lucy knew that fighting was bad. But now, trapped in this dark room, with nothing to do except hope for the return of the man who wanted to end her life, there was a part of Lucy that was beginning to understand.

Her father was talking about a different kind of fight.

There was a feeling in her entire body that was not unlike the way she had felt right before she hit Brian Denham so hard it had made his nose bleed. But that hadn't been about the actual fighting, either. She hadn't enjoying rolling around in the sand with him, scratching at his arms and pulling his hair, and she hadn't liked sitting in Headmistress Miller's office, waiting for her mother to pick her up.

But she had fought Brian Denham because he was a bully and she wouldn't let him scare her away from the playground. Her father had understood that, and that was why the punishment she had expected that evening had never come.

The man and this cold dark house were just bullies, like stupid Brian, and she would fight them, not for the right to play in the sandbox, but for her life.

She knew that she couldn't beat the man up, the way she had with Brian, but there were other ways to fight, and Lucy's plan was ready. What she needed was for the man to come back, or it would all be pointless.

There was nothing she could do against locked doors and empty stomachs.

She got up from her seat on the floor and walked to the window, looking out into the darkness. The moon was almost full, and she could see its light reflected on the thin cover of clouds that hid its outline.

Downstairs, she heard the sound of the front door creaking.

The man was back at last.


End file.
